This is the blog of Ahmed Limam, providing insight and intelligence on international business and technology, HR, politics, travels, movies, history, literature and any other human endeavor worth bothering about

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Monday, January 11, 2016

As a new year starts, many of you will be busy working on an RFP for a new HR or ERP system. One aspect that draws little attention from the myriad reports and posts on system evaluation deals with pricing, contracts and other T&Cs (terms and conditions). This means that because of the inherent knowledge imbalance between vendor and customer, the latter is always the loser as they tend to learn after the fact (the reason for this knowledge imbalance being that vendors respond to RFPs all year long, whereas customers engage in new RFPs only once in a while, and their procurement departments cannot be expert in all business domains and vendors -especially for smaller-sized companies.)

So, as a New Year's gift to my readers, here are some advice and information which I am sure you will find useful as you negotiate the perilous shoals of cloud contracting.

No public price list
Unfortunately for user organizations, cloud vendors are playing this game with their cards close to their chest. It is almost impossible for a new customer to find out what is the "true" price of a specific module - "true" meaning how much a comparable company has paid for the honor of becoming a user. Don't expect any customer to share that information freely at Workday Rising, SuccessConnect, Oracle World or Cornerstone Convergence. And as for the vendor, mum's the word. In other words, you're pretty much on your own here.

The basics

(This post focuses on pricing issues related to software vendors. Of course, an HRIS project often involves another vendor, a system integrator, which brings pricing and contracting issues of its own. I will discuss those in a later post)

About the blogger

A global business and HR technology expert, I live in Paris,France where I was born, after stints in North Africa, the US (where I went to college), Spain (where I worked for the UN) and Brazil (my second home during my freelance years.) A strong believer in the dual role of HR and cloud technology to enhance corporate performance, these convictions are voiced in journal articles, at conferences and in blog posts. My hobbies include swimming, movies and literature. I am also the proud author of "High-Tech Planet", a rare business novel set in the IT industry (available from Amazon: http://amzn.to/czf0qw.) A relentless multilingual globe-trotter, you can see a sample of my detailed captioned pictures at http://bit.ly/dBcJkw. To quote Charlemagne: "to have a second language is to have a second soul." I also NEVER TAKE THINGS AT THEIR FACE VALUE. Challenge the received wisdom and go beyond first impressions: you'll be amply rewarded - that's my philosophy.
I can be reached at: contact@AhmedLimam.com.
NOTE: The thoughts expressed in this blog reflect my own, personal views not those of any of my employers, current or past.